Theological principles of constitutionalists
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 7, 2006
GREENVILLE, S.C. – Richard Burnett, a professor of systematic theology at Erskine Theological Seminary, described the theological underpinnings of Constitutional Presbyterians – but, he warned his audience, “it doesn’t fit on a bumpersticker.”
Constitutional Presbyterians have drafted a “Theological Declaration,” which Burnett described as having “no official status or authority,” being “deeply flawed … strictly provisional … subject to all sorts of errors, misunderstandings and ambiguity” and “in no way a substitute for, an alternative to, or in competition with anything said in our Book of Confessions.”
Furthermore, he added, “being a Presbyterian means more than what we’re saying … but, at the same time, it “doesn’t mean less.”
After his modest assessment of the declaration, Burnett focused on what he called the Cliff’s Notes version of 13 articles:
- 1. “We don’t get to name God anything we please. God names himself. That’s what the Bible says. The God we worship is ‘the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Calling God the ‘creator, redeemer and sustainer’ doesn’t cut it. That’s a job description.”
- 2. The Trinity is not God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. “The Trinity is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” he said, noting that “the Father” has dropped out of many mainline churches “because they say they’ve had bad experiences with fathers. … But the good news of Jesus Christ is that our true Father is not always angry like many earthly fathers, nor is he lazy or permissive like many earthly fathers.”
- 3. “The councils of Nicea and Chalcedon gave us faithful descriptions of who Jesus Christ is according to Scripture, and they ought to be taken seriously. And, yes, salvation is in no other name that Jesus Christ our Lord.”
- 4. The Holy Spirit is a “who” and not an “it.” “The Holy Spirit is none other than the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We don’t believe in the Force.”
- 5. “Many of us have forgotten why the church exists, namely, not for herself, but for the world … Liberals today tend to falsely identify the visible Church with buildings and institutions. Evangelicals tend to falsely spiritualize the Church as if visible structures and unity don’t really matter. Both are wrong and both risk dividing the Church.”
- 6. “Many of us have forgotten how this business of being Protestant got started in the first place. We’ve forgotten that we’re under the Word; apart from freedom under the Word, we have no true freedom as Christians.”
- 7. “Some in the Church today think they can know the will of God or the mind of Christ better than the prophets and apostles. Jack Rogers and members of the PUP Task Force … think they know it better than the clear and unambiguous witness of the Church for 2,000 years and the overwhelming consensus of Biblical interpretation … so much for being connectional!”
- 8. “We might experience God through extraordinary means, but we ought not to neglect or fail to prioritize what our tradition calls the ‘ordinary means of grace,’ namely, the reading and preaching of Scripture and communal and private prayer.”
- 9. “We’ve got to put a stop to these drive-by baptisms and learn what it means to be a covenant community again. We’ve got to learn how to catechize again.”
- 10. “Justification and sanctification always go together and never should be separated, as any Reformed believer should know. Salvation is not simply a matter of our hearts, but of our minds, our souls and our bodies.”
- 11. “Only sinners can be members of the Church. Nobody else should be allowed. And this business of taking up the cross is not just what ordained people are called to do; it’s what all Christians are called to do.”
- 12. “Clifton Kirkpatrick is not the head of the church. Jesus Christ is. He is the one who defines what ministry is, not Louisville. The Presbyterian Church went 150 years in this country without any national office and, believe it or not, managed to do ministry anyway. … It’s probably a good idea to remember that on the Last Day it won’t be Louisville asking what we did with the talents given to us. It’ll be the Lord.”
- 13. “Being Presbyterian means being governed by elders. We’ve got to rediscover the office of ruling elders. If the elders don’t rise up and take back this church, we might as well be Episcopalians or Methodists.”
A clear theological identity, Burnett said, is needed today “because I think our very identity, not only as Presbyterians, but as Christians, may well be at stake.”
He quoted theologian Ulrich Mauser who once told him, “National Socialism had devastating consequences for the Church and for the World, but sometimes I wonder if the prevailing ideologies of this country will not ultimately prove to be more devastating.”
Burnett added, “My point is: Constitutional integrity requires that we say not only yes to what we affirm but we say no to what we reject. The no exists for the sake of clarity, for the sake of definiteness.”